Harry Potter and the Ruthless Case of Queer-baiting

Oh, Gods.

I don't want to write this article. This is actually being written over an article where I defend Rowling.

I never hit publish, never quite happy with it, not 100% convinced by my own arguments. I'll be keeping bits of it as I go along, trying to keep my balance as I do my thing and see both sides. Inside, I'm hurting.

So. Here we go.

I would hate to be J.K Rowling. I mean, who'd want what she's got? Sales figures that are a publishing rep's wet dream, every property she writes pure marketing gold, and enough clout that she actually got the final say on that dreadful, yellow book cover. Who'd want that? To be rich, famous, talented and the mythmaker for an entire generation.

Oh, yeah. That last one's a bit of a risk, isn't it?

Original Potterheads:

I am part of the original Potter generation, the generation to whom the books were initially marketed, before teachers, broadcasters and Hollywood started to push them on people. I say this not as a hipster claim, but just to state how seminal these books were, what they meant to people who were already readers.

For a start, we didn't have the snappy name back then. The concept of fandom soared clear over our sheltered heads. We identified each other more by, "Oh, yeah, have you read those new books about the wizard school?! J.K Roe-ling… R-ow-ling? Yeah, her. No she's a woman, seriously! Do you know she's like releasing one every school year?"

Someone gave this to Sprog1 and now we've got three copies!

The thing is, reading wasn't cool. Maybe it still isn't, but then it was the sign of a total freak. Children's books were not made into multi-million dollar film franchises. There was no such thing as YA. The organisation in libraries and bookshops went from the bright, exciting covers of the 9-12 fiction to a slim, drab and threatening section labelled 'teen'.

The adults you spoke to make it clear that this section was a teeny bit unsavoury. There were books in there which could categorised as acceptably serious books about issues, and there were the unfortunate but necessary books about relationships, but there was also the odd, well (whisper it) genre novel. Which probably had sex in it, too. Not really your sort of thing, dear.

As a pre-teen, I hungered for magic. But everywhere, unspoken, was the idea that somewhere between children's fiction and grown-up books, you had to give up adventure, dragons, prophetic dreams, strange futures, that somewhere in that 'teen' section, it went from being acceptable and charming to 'trash'. You could - I was beginning to understand - get it back; I'd devoured Cohelo's The Alchemist, been terrified and shocked by a copy of The Handmaid's Tale I'd found left on a desk at school, stolen my mum's The Children of Men (I only returned it when I left home). I was, even then, struggling through Mythago Wood for the first time, bewildered and entranced. But even though I was getting bored with childish things, I wasn't quite ready, emotionally or intellectually to make that leap.

So, between The Chronicles of Narnia and Nights at the Circus there was a wide, barren desert. I was expected, even pushed, to read serious, considered books. I was offered The Classics, but they didn't have enough blood and thunder to hold me. I was offered books about kissing and parties and clothes. I was offered well-meaning but patronising books about divorces and bullying and drugs?

How to express, at that age, that nothing was as serious for me as the end of the Oaken Throne, where Ysabelle puts her heartbreak aside to fulfil her destiny? Or than Kathleen battling abuse and bigotry in Dogsbody, pining for her absent father?

And, of course, I was such an avid reader. I'd tear through novels so fast that teacher's wouldn't believe my reading diary and I had to lie, dragging them out over weeks, not hours, reading them three or four times in the interim. At home, I was constantly, constantly after something new to read.
How about this?
 "Has it got ghosts in it?"
 Not exactly.
"What about magic?"
 Well, I suppose they do magical things!
"Such as...?"
... make butter?*

There was the occasional reprieve, the odd brilliant book which couldn't be teen because magic, but didn't talk down to me either. There was Pullman's His Dark Materials, William Nicholson's The Wind on Fire series. There was the perfect, irreplaceable Diana Wynne Jones. There was Alan than God for you Garner. There was my beloved Robin Jarvis.  But for every magical, gorgeous book that touched my heart, there were a hundred 'meh's - goofy, cutesy, predictable.

With a sizable marketing budget, clear branding, Harry Potter seemed to see that hollow place in my life, and to make a go of filling it.

 

Mind the gap:

 

But at that exact point in history, the marketing niche it was aimed for was perceived as tiny.

If you have not guessed from the above, my pre-adolescene was not a golden age of children's fiction. Books met relatively little fanfare. They seldom flew from the shelves. Dahl was the last superstar, and he'd been dead seven years.

So, when Harry Potter was published, it was being cast into an arena of modest investment, modest returns. It was marketed carefully to make its appeal as widespread as possible within that fanatical pool of young readers. It had just enough brand consistency that the extended series would draw in those who liked the familiarity and recognisable aesthetic of books like Goosebumps, The Babysitters Club, or even Redwall.

In doing this, I don't doubt that some decisions were made - some at the unconscious level, some explicitly - to make its appeal as 'broad' as possible - and by broad, I mean pandering to priviliged readers and expecting the rest to suck it up. Conventional wisdom has it that boys are reluctant to read books about female characters, white readers are less likely to read about protagonists of colour. Rowling was even recommened to use her initials, incase her womanhood put off the boys.

Nice, clear branding.

There were also, whether conscious or unconscious, assumptions made about what the readers for this book would look like - those people who must not be alientated, whose parents must not ban them from reading this.

So, yeah, we were assumed to be shy, nerdy, lonely, but we were also judged to be middle class, straight, white. We were seen as inhabiting literate homes - probably detached homes, too, the that have kind gardens. They considered us as cis, as able bodied, as surrounded by supportive, literate adults. We were expected to be the children of adults who bought us books and read with us. These were children's books - not  handbooks for difficult teens learning to be adults or worthy issues books pitched at the troubled "youth". They were books for children, and to be a child at that age is a privilege.

Escapism, you see, was held to be very bourgeois. That was what all those messages to move on to Classics or Teen had been whispering - that reading books about witches, dragons and talking mice was childish, was irresponsible. That it was a sign of my sheltered life. I was still permitted it because I was cosseted, because I didn't have to face reality yet.

But, underneath its shiny surface of magic, Harry Potter was one of the most real thing some of us had read. It did what great fiction can do, what it should do; it kept our eyes fixed on the story while showing us so much more. It showed - not told - us how relationships worked, how people grew. It showed us prejudice and suffering, politics and heartbreak and abuse. It gave us the truest lesson, that the world does not divide neatly into Good People and Death Eaters.

And, because it chimed those deep, secret chords within us, we lent it to friends, nagged adults to read it, wrote gushing letters to the author, queued up outside bookshops, waiting, waiting for the next book.

And that's how it happened.

None of us saw it coming, the universal appeal, the near religious fanaticism. Through canny marketing, word of mouth, and genuine reader enthusiasm, Rowling's success did far more than just create a generation of readers and a million fanfics.

Adults read it under 'grown-up' covers to prevent being seen reading a children's book. Children read it under plain covers to hide its 'satanic' nature from religious parents. Dial-up connections crashed as people took 'Sorting' tests. One glorious summer afternoon in Poland, three generations of my family sat around a table, trying to puzzle out the meaning of the 'gleam of triumph' in Dumbledore's eyes at the end of book four.


We were slap bang in the middle of a cultural phenomenon.

And no-one had any idea how to respond.

Suddenly, that world isn't just one of multitudes held in the head of a few keen readers; it is the cultural myth of entire generations. It grows and grows and grows. Everyone has read it. Rowling has reshaped the universe inside people's head.

Children actually weep when they do not receive their Hogwarts letter. Adults wander the streets in  house colours. Blogs, articles, TV programmes discuss every word of every page. People send her their theories, their own novels, their sexual fantasies about her characters. And people - kids, teens, adults - of every colour, religion, gender, sexuality tell her how much it means to them. People tell her that she saved their life, saved them from loneliness, helped them through loss, depression, abuse.

She had not only shown us what she intended, but a hundred thousand things which she did not. We read our own stories on her pages, and wanted her to give them truth, validity.

The weight of that terrifies me.

Rowling had to cope with being something more than a wordsmith. She became foster mother to a generation, she became messianic: our prophet, our storyteller, our lifeline.

How the hell does a person deal with that?

 

 One Person cannot deal with all that.

She tried, Jesus Christ did she try. I've got to give her that.

I can only applaud Rowling for being so patient, so caring, so careful in the way she handles her fans. She has tried so hard to make it clear that the world she had built is a safe haven, that Hogwarts is open and welcoming. Frankly that's amazing and I wish I could leave it at that. But, ultimately, all she has done is tell us those things. She has given us are words  - not stories. She has given us empty assurances, not fictions.

Because that was the mistake that was made, I think, when my generation were being ushered through the world of books. People in hard places do not need 'serious' books, they do not need an all knowing adult talking them through their problems. Or, maybe they do need that - but they need fantasy, too. They need to see themselves battling the Dementors of depression, or the Boggarts of fear. They need to believe a family like the Weasleys will share what little they have with a lonely, abused child. Escape is not a luxury - it is a necessity.

 But key in this, is that they need to see oneself. To see that being black, or gay, or trans is not going to see you treated as worth less - the way that, perhaps, you are being treated in this one. Or, if you are, you need to see yourself triumph all the same.

And while, metaphorically, you have those stories - you are only there by inference, by parallel. There is nothing to help you make sense of the world as you. There are no out gay couples in the course of the books, there are no visible trans characters. The children are segregated by (binary) gender in their dormitories. The BME representation at the most prestigious wizarding school in the world is about as shitty as it was at my horribly middle class Grammar School. The disabled access is non-existent.

But... 

The first book was released in '97 - the year Labour won the General Election after nearly 18 years of Conservative government. Section 28 was not repealed until 2003. In the context, having Lupin as a metaphor for an HIV+ guy who loses his job among 'moral' homophobic panic was very brave move. Telling us that Dumbledore was gay after the event was making clear something that couldn't have been explicit in the books.

If there had been an openly gay character in a position of responsibility in a popular children's book in 1999, an editor would have told Rowling to cut them. Heck, she ran into enough hellfire and hatred from the religious nut crowd for writing about fictional wizards. The outcry at an openly gay Dumbledore would have made the hounding of werewolves in-world seem like a village fete. If her publisher had permitted it early in the series, her books would have been impossibly niche, issues books. If they had somehow become popular, one parental complain would have seen them swept from school shelves, challenged in every single library. 

Our world is a full of bigots as the magical one.

So, apparently, Harry Potter means a lot to me

In case you didn't know, I've had a pretty intense year. Don't get me wrong, most of this is positive stuff, but its very much marked a transitional period in my life,** and has involved a lot of soul searching and occasionally investing far too much in fictional characters and musicians. One of the ways this has been manifesting is an unpacking of a lot of the assumptions and behaviours I formed in early adolescence - when the depression first struck, when I was trying so desperately to be the person I was supposed to be.

For the last ten years or so, I never really thought I rated Harry Potter. Sure the books were magical, but I was an original Potterhead: they were just one magical world amongst many. Oh, I loved the first couple as a kid, but it's only really Azkaban that stays with me. After that? well, Goblet of Fire is pretty good, but I lost interest with Order of the Pheonix. Instead, I began misusing my knowledge, winding up friends who still took it seriously.

Harry Potter and the 607 Pages of Back-Story

I always assumed I'd grown up too much while waiting for it. After all, I hardly rushed to buy Half-Blood Prince - and when I did, I found it decidedly 'meh'. Sure, I thought, I'll hang around to see how the series ends, but don't expect any enthusiasm.

When it came to Deathly Hallows I acknowledged a return to form, a recapturing of some of the magic of the earlier stories. No, it didn't hit on every point, but I was willing to forgive. It was an okay children's book. Besides, I'd grown up a bit more and it was nice to be part of it again, the general buzz of a cultural phenomenon, able to laugh and say I was about half-way a fan. That I prefered the earlier books.

Still, I never quite bothered with the proper stuff. I only liked this, I didn't love it. The films are - ironically -  a closed book. I didn't get on Pottermore, never got myself Sorted - and anyway, everyone knew I'd be a Ravenclaw. It wasn't important. Besides, only kids actually want to be Gryffindors.

Then came the day that Sprog1 started reading Philosophers' Stone and it was really nice sharing a bit of hype with her. And, yeah, I'd bought a Hogwarts t-shirt, but only ironically. Anyway, it was cheap. And red.

No. I wasn't going to book tickets to Cursed Child, don't be silly.  But I'd probably pick up the script after it - okay, the actual day it came out. Well, it was there and - books, you know? And yeah, I might have read it at the same old breathless speed, but that's only because Scorpius and Albus are just darling. Otherwise, yeah, it wasn't so much to write home about. And, actually, perhaps it isn't such a terrible thing to be a Slytherin, after all and, well, just for a laugh, just for a giggle, because it didn't matter, I made a Pottermore account and got myself Sorted.

I was in Norwich, sitting in the Waffle House. I'd just bought myself a new-second-hand leather jacket because my sister had sent me a link for these and I needed something to stitch them too, and hey, didn't I used to wear a jacket covered with all sorts of pins and patches? Why did I give up doing that? I should totally bring that back.

So, a good day, let's have a bit of fun. I tap through the Sorting questions on my phone, let the Hat have its little think, and suddenly I'm nervous. Like, exam results nervous.

It's only a bit of fun. It's only Harry Potter.

But what if the screen goes yellow? 

Yeah, well Hufflepuff are probably the best people. You know more of them fought in the Battle of Hogwarts than any other house?

What if it goes green?

Then you'll be like Scorpius. Anyway, we know you're more of a Ravenclaw. It's who you are. Bookish. Anti-social. It'll go blue.

Besides, it doesn't matter. 

It's just a game. 

You're going to be in Ravenclaw. Or maybe Huff-

Alys, it's just a bit of fun. 

Would you believe I actually whooped? And laughed, hard, even hysterically? I was breathing relief, I was walking on sunshine, I was every single fucking cliché. And it hit me.

It mattered.

I hadn't realised how much it fucking mattered. How much I had invested into that self-image: bit reckless, bit conceited, occasionally a jackass - even a gloryhound - but also brave, honourable and maybe slightly unbalanced. Gryffindors are by no means the best people in the world, but their flaws are my flaws. Suddenly, it was all just wonderful. It was all so fantastic that I was going to go out and buy myself a Gryffindor pin and a Pride flag badge and I was going to attach them to my gorgeous, brand new-second-hand Sirius jacket.

My what now?

The name was there, ready in my head. My Sirius jacket. Maybe it had even been there as I was trying it on - this was the kind of jacket Sirius Black would wear while riding his flying motor bike, with a Gryffindor pin to piss off the pure-bloods in his life, and a Pride flag because...

Oh, it had mattered, hadn't it? All those years, it had mattered far more than I had ever let on. When was it I turned on Harry Potter, dismissing it as okay-enough-for-kids? When was it that I let cynicism overcome that devotion?

Oh, yeah. With book five. At the end.

Let's be Sirius:

Oh, JK. How could you?

I know he couldn't be out. I always knew that. Just like Dumbledore couldn't be out in the books.

But, at 12 years old, Sirius Black was everything I wanted to be. So brave, so honourable, so righteous. He would, did, give everything for his friends. He was ready to kill to avenge them. He would have died for them - he meant that. He was willing to die without recognition, without... Look, he deliberately put himself in the firing line while their safety scuttled away with Peter: I was the obvious choice.

And the way that - after everything he has suffered, everything he has lost because of Harry - Sirius is still willing to be his father-figure - more - his friend. Sirius was the very best of me, what I could only hope to be to the people in my life. Steadfast and devoted and brave, willing to suffer to protect the people he loved.

I still cry when Remus embraces him like a brother.

Oh, my heart.

It was so rare I felt that quicksilver moment, that sense that a writer looked deep in to my heart and read what was there - every hope and every fear: Alanna, Susan in The Moon of Gomrath, Prince Rilian of Narnia... and Sirius Black.

Of course, Rowling kills him off at the end of book five - offhand, using him to push forward Harry's journey, his death subsumed by the 'bigger' tragedy that Harry never knew his parents, the fact that Voldemort is back.

What did I take from that dismissal? After all, I wasn't out in any sense back then. Still, did I take the message that people 'like me' - whatever that meant - weren't really welcome in Hogwarts? That my sympathy, my identity should not be here? That I should be sympathising with Harry, or with Hermione? That I could go along with Ron, grow up with Ginny, find my bravery like Neville, or follow Malfoy on his redemption arc? That I could emulate one of the Weasleys, lovable Arthur, warm Molly, cool Bill, or dragon-obsessed, sportsman Charlie.

But not Sirius. Not tragic and a bit broken, not the accidental betrayer, the furious seeker of vengeance. Not the misunderstood, the falsely accused, the sincere and steadfast one who - along with Remus Lupin - is the closest thing we actually see to a parent figure for Harry? No. You don't get to grow with him.

And, besides, he's gay.

Rowling coded Sirius' queerness just as she coded Dumbledore's - but whereas Dumbledore is a fin de siècle cliché of gayness (youthful dalliance with beautiful young man of questionable morals that ends catastrophically, years of remorse and - one assumes - celibacy) - Sirius' cliché is more contemporary. His endless devotion to James, his presence as almost a third-wheel in Harry's parents' relationship, the way he is the first one there once they are attacked - this is love, right here.

Later, he and Remus (another character who is coded as queer) send Harry a joint Christmas present. Make of that what you will.


I remember the chapter 'Snape's Worst Memory' not because it shows James and Sirius being utterly dickish, no. What I remember is Sirius paying no attention to the swooning glances of the girls around him because he's too busy looking at James. I remember him saying, "Put that away, will you?" when James' showing off and Peter's toadying become uncomfortable, how he watches James' back every time Snape reaches for his wand.*** I remember how, while being insufferable himself, he's always there, reminding James that maybe he should stop being such a irritiating prick - and he is, after all, the only one Jame's will listen to. Their bond goes even deeper than that which binds the rest of Mssrs Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. They are Sirius Black and James Potter, inseprable double act. Remus is too sensible, Peter too ingratiating. Sirius and James are equals, soul twins.

And, perhaps, when  Lily rejects James' advances the first time, he's just a little too quick in there with the, "Bad luck, Prongs."

Structurally, this scene sets up Sirius as a direct parrallel to Snape - they are each other's reflection, their "there but for the grace of the Sorting Hat'. Both come from traditionally Slytherin homes, have unhappy homes of varying stripes. Both are talented students with a dismissive attitude to authority. Both of them are in love with one of Harry's parents, and have that love requited only by a deep, friendly regard. But Sirius is aware of the waters that Snape is treading - they were the direction his life would have, the path his whole family tried to set him along - and how close they really are. No wonder he detests him so deeply.

And these are the circumstances that lead Snape to act like an entitled prick when James gets with Lily, to call Lily a mudblood, to become a Death-Eater and inadvertently betray her by passing information on to Voldemort. Snape gets to repent at leisure and ALWAYS or not, he bullies Harry for six whole years for being the son of the man Lily chose over him. Sirius, on the other hand, looks out for his James' character, does his best to move on, stands best man at James' wedding and godfather to the son of the woman James chose over him. He puts his life on the line to protect them all from Voldemort and inadvertantly betrays them through a double bluff intended to make them safer. He does thirteen years for a crime he didn't commit, escapes only to protect Harry, then becomes a fugitive who repeatedly puts himself in danger to protect, watch over and buy presents for James' son.

Honestly, Sirius' love for James is one the most beautiful things in the series - it is there in his every action, every word. Yes, it could be friendly love, but it shows itself as more real, more convincing on every level that Snape's fan-favourite-adoration of Lily. The only other bond he has that comes close is with Remus. And later, after they've both lost everything, he and Remus find some comfort in each other whose force and commitment is there, in the text, in that embrace.

It was only this summer I realised how much all that meant to me.

The Cursed Child 

It doesn't MATCH!

(Warning - spoilers.)

What happens in The Cursed Child is queer baiting. Never mind that Scorpius forgets his name when talking to Albus for the first time, never mind all their hugging and not being able to live without each other and Scorpius getting stupidly jealous over Delphini - no. What's really going on is that Scorpius is in love with Rose Granger - the most two-dimensional and unlikable character I've ever had the misfortune of sharing a house with - and Albus is... Albus is...

Look, they're straight, alright?

I, along with a large chunk of the Internet let out a quiet, "Oh, ffs." Are we not over this yet? Okay, Dumbledore couldn't be out and Sirius couldn't be out and Remus couldn't be out and... and... and... but you are now an international phenomenon, woman, and you can do as you damn well please. These two are clearly in love. It's narratively 20 years since after the end of Harry Potter, Section 28 died a well over-due death, same sex marraige is legal even in the Muggle world and... *now kiss*

In fact, the whole set up of Cursed Child favours a queer interpretation - so Harry and Malfoy have trouble connecting to their sons, do they? They can't understand them? Worry about the influence of that boy they spend quite so much time with? And their sons are outcasts in some way, knowing themselves to be somehow different from what they 'should' be?

Okay, really, *NOW KISS*

Stop queering everything, Alys! Homosocial friendship is a real thing, you know!

Of course it is. It's what Harry and Ron have. It's what exists between Ginny and Hermione. It's what Cho and whats-er-name, the one who betrayed the DA, had. Hogwarts is full of friends. Oh, totes, ship them if you want, but in the books there is very little subtext. And, yes, those friendships can be intense, vital, the most important connection in a person's life - it's Ron that Harry has to rescue from the lake, after all. James became an Animagus for Remus - but there's nothing sexual there.

If we are to believe that Scorpius falls madly in love with Rose at first sight - with whom he exchanges about forty words - how are we to brush aside what he feels with Albus, whom he spends the whole blasted play with, or at least mooning over? Albus, with whom his chemistry and just-plain-raging-cuteness, is off all known scales?

I admit, I ship and OTP as badly as any other internet nerd, but I only headcanon when there is sufficient justification in the source text. Katie Reed and Geneviève Dieudonné? I'd love it, and I hold out hope - but Katie is het. Mina Murray and Lucy Westenra? Possibly - but I suspect it never got very far, and it's quite one-sided. Holmes and Watson? No. Not in the books, and not in most of the adaptions, either. That's what friendship looks like. Raffles and Bunny? Jesus Christ, you two, get a room.

Albus and Scorpius?

 I admit - I was disappointed.

This was a missed opportunity, a bit of bad writing, a sop to the bigots. No - it didn't have to be explicit. I mean, yeah, *now kiss* and it would have been nice, but you don't actually need a "Dad, I'm bi," moment. Readers and theatre-goers do subtext - its sort of our thing. Those two are clearly in to each other, so you don't have make a big deal of it. Show, don't tell! Just have them act like they're everyone's OTP every second they are on stage together and we'll get the message.


But instead, we got a play that showed us one thing, clearly, blatently and fan-service-ly, while verbally hammering us with another. "Oh, you thought it was Albus that Scorpius was in to? Oh, no, I can see that, but it's Rose. Totally Rose. RoseRoseRose. SEE HOW MANY TIMES I'M TELLING YOU IT'S ROSE."

And that's actually really gross. It's a cowardly and ugly way of keeping the LGBTQA+ community onside without giving anything real to hold on to. It's another way of telling us that, oh, yeah, we're allowed at Hogwarts - but not in the spotlight. That we are permitted existence, but not as a focal point, not as something we can grow with, live, embrace.

Rowling can do as she damn well pleases, and it pleased her to do this.

 

Death of the Author and archives of our own:

 

As soon as a book - any book - is read, it ceases to be the sole property of the author. Okay, lawyers might disagree, but as a reader and an academic, I will stand by this. Reading is a collaborative effort - an audience is not a passive consumer of authorial wisdom.

We engage. We see the stories they didn't even realise they were telling and we run with them because they are important to us. Yes, the copyright rests with them - as it should - but we care; it matters. And because of that we pick through the text and embellish upon the original structure until it is infinitely more beautiful and vivid than one person or creative team could ever have made it.

Long running franchises like Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars have thrived upon this collaborative creation. Their worlds are richer for fan input, fan discourse.

What's more, Hogwarts is not just one among many magical worlds: it's a cultural phenomenon. It has become a cross-generational way of understanding ourselves, our relationships, our world. Every kid who gets themselves Sorted adds a little something to the world, every forum discussion, every cosplay, every round-the-kitchen-table confab creates a new interpretation, a new set of possibilites. And people of every background and persuasion want to take part in it.

Waving an authorial hand and saying, "Yeah, you're welcome, the place could do with a few rainbows," is well-intentioned, but ultimately meaningless. It's all very well to offer us a place at the table, but actually, we'd already made our own, and we will occupy it on our terms.

Because here's the thing - we don't just want to be at Hogwarts, in the background. We want a chance to be in the golden trio, in the Triwizard tournament, battling Death-Eaters, or working for the Ministry. We want to be in the Order of the Pheonix - not just elderly and celibate and dead - but living and loving and fighting another day. We want a chance to raise our kids, marry our lover, build ourselves families.

Yes, playing with canon by queering and swapping about gender and race is fun, but it is not merely reckless game played by entitled fans. Especially as a preteen, there is a need to see yourself in fiction, to find a character who stands for you and by you. It is one of the most profound ways that a person's identity and resilience can be built and developed. We don't just need to be told we belong, we need to see ourselves belonging, as worthy and important and with stories worth telling.

Sometimes mere words aren't enough. We need to be shown, not told. And if you won't do that, we have to do it for ourselves.

There is no such thing as 'only' fan work - the relationship between canon and fanon is symbiotic. Although it might have authorial approval, black Hermione was not Rowling's idea  - it was a fan theory born of a need to see oneself. There is no reason why it can't be true, and seeing Rowling nod and say that, yeah, this is an equally valid interpretation was a beautiful moment for many fans.

It's another example of the way that Rowling tries. Running in the blinkers of privilige, she makes mistakes, sweeping into tokenism, presenting us with clichés and caricatures. Others have criticised her handling of race, gender, her presentation of class, and dear-Gods-the-house-elf-thing - but I always had her in mind as someone who honestly does try, who is able to see that her vision of a character is not the definitive one, that other stories can exist in the cracks of her book, can be found by the people who are forced to inhabit those spaces.

Rowling took Sirius away from me when I was sixteen, and still needed him. I found him again, years later, with a story that maybe she didn't realise was there. I'm a reader, literary detective work is what I'm good at. I found the Sirius I needed - devoted, honourable, reckless, vindictive, and gay.

Her words hurt.

Again, I was surprised by how much it mattered. It felt like such a silly thing to bother me so much, such an obscure and self-indulgent pain. But I have lived my life through books, and to say so emphatically that I do not understand Sirius is to say I do not understand myself. To imply that I am deluded about him is to erase the parts of me that are built upon him.

No, maybe she didn't write him as gay - I'll accept that. Maybe she doesn't see him as gay - that's fine, too - after all, some people don't see me as trans or bi. Sometimes writers don't actually know everything about their characters, sometimes they need things pointed out to them. Sometimes, we have what we believe, but recognise that we left some ambiguity there - a well written character can be read in so many ways.

She could have said something like that.

She could just have answered someone else's question. 

The very popularity of her work puts Rowling in an impossible position, but - in the context of Cursed Child - I'm struggling to forgive this. She teased us with a white, cis m/m pairing which - as far as these things go - is about as mainstream an LGBT relationship can get, only to pull back, sating no, it was Rose. And, shortly after this, she pulled the plug on one of the most accepted fanon orientations. What's more, she did this without her usual, sensitive handling but with a surety, a flippancy that almost communicated a distaste. That, yeah, gay people were allowed, but not, like here, where we can all see them. That queer people were allowed a tiny bit of Hogwarts, but not a piece that actually mattered.

It was as though everything I felt and knew about this character was something she felt entitled to blank away, as though it were a mistake on a manuscript. It was as though I saw myself through her eyes - something permitted to exist, but only on sufference. I was allowed a tenancy in her world, but only on her terms. People like me are not allowed to get above ourselves.

This is not okay. There has been so much, now, that is not okay, but this felt like the first time that she had deliberately drawn a line, wresting back her creation from the tarnish laid on it by 'SJWs' - or, as I like to see it, people who grew up, loving her work. I've disagreed with her on a lot of things, have criticised a lot of her creative decisions, but feel as though I've been hanging on here - describing them as blunders rather than slights, desperately trying to see the good in someone I used to admire.

I cannot bear her ill will - her position, after all, is impossible. But I cannot let this slide.

She's the one, after all, who taught us the world does not divide in to good people and Death Eaters.

All I can say, Ms Rowling, is that your words can cause great hurt as well as great joy. All the same, thank you for Sirius. Thank you for your novels, and the lessons they have about tolerance, friendship and magic. Thank you for creating this world for us. I am honoured to have been Sorted in to Gryffindor, house of such renowned and LGBTQA+ magical folk as Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonnagol and Sirius Black.

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* my mum, who has the patience of a saint, developed some incredible strategies on this front.
 ** if you ever suspect me of making a pun, the chances are that you're right...
 *** Something many people forget about this scene is that - yeah, James and Sirius are being total arses here, but the first chance Snape gets to throw a curse, he gets right in there with the slasher hex.

Thunder in her Veins - the sacredness of geekdom

Some bits of childhood never do make sense.

Look: I grew up in a village with an unreliable bus service and two shops - that became one shop, and then none, and that's where it's settled. It was the sort of place where there were enough people who wore petticoats for the expression "Charlie's dead" to be part of my childhood lexicon. My elder sister was the first - the only - girl on the school's football team. It was a place where 'comic' meant the Dandy and the Beano, or - if you were really lucky - an old copy of Bunty*.

So how I ever came to read Marvel's Thor line is something of a mystery to me. I think I had a Spiderman annual once, and there was the X Men and the Fantastic Four on telly on a Saturday morning, but… Thor? Seriously? I might have been able to get it at the comic book store in the nearest town (seven miles and, apparently, a twenty year timeslip away) but, well, I always knew places like that weren't made for people like me**.

All the same, Thor I did read. A fair few, actually. Mostly the early ones, with Donald Blake in them. I remember being caught by something about them - the disabled man whose vocation was easing others' pain, his walking stick actually the hammer Mjolnir. I still can't really express why, but something about them felt very beautiful, very true.  Maybe it was the overtones of the Fisher King? Maybe it was just the myth connection.

Because I was a myth junkie, devouring folklore and fairytale. If a story was old and epic and glorious, then it was my kind of story. I grinned at the pranks of tricksters, railed at monsters, wept for Prometheus chained to his rock. Raised as both an Anglican and a Baptist (don't ask) I was used to God being male, ineffably right and absorbingly loving. My contact with the grim, problematic stories of the Bible was one sanitised by a Sunday school framing which repackaged them into a reassuring scholasticism where faith (read:goodness) was rewarded, and the wicked (read: unbelievers) were punished.

Noble failure...

Myths weren't like that. In myths, all bets were off. And that made for grandeur and for tragedy. It made for fatal flaws and noble failure. It made for Gods who were tricksy, passionate, even petty. They could be deceived, could deceive. They could be wrong. 

And yet despite all that, they were honourable, powerful, righteous.

It's probably fair to say that I found myself through reading Norse legends. Yes, I was too young, too uncertain, to call it 'faith', yet all the same something in me ran to those myths with a more intuitive open-heartedness than my parents' religion could ever call from me. More, they seemed to understand me. I craved them, the way you crave salt when dehydrated: dread, beautiful Freyja; bright, lost Baldur; Loki - quick, cunning, dangerous; and Thor.

Of course, Thor.

I always feel faintly ridiculous using the word 'sacrilege' in anything other than ironic hyperbole. All the same, there does need to be a word for that hurt that is located somewhere against your heart, behind your ribs, when the things you hold sacred are treated slightingly. As a Pagan who honours certain Norse deities, there is something wrong in seeing the stark, terrible beauty of your mythic landscape re-envisaged into slick, commercial print, complete with hulking villains and so. much. spandex.

Thus it was that, for years, I was embarrassed by the association. Marvel's Thor was not my Thor, their Odin not my AllFather. Drawing that distinction was important, remains important still. But scorning the former overlooks something vital, something powerful, something old. The memory of it came back to me with the release of the MCU film. A sense of struggle, of soaring glory, of a rightness at the very base of something. And, yes, it was more slickly packaged, and sexier than a fireside story about Sir Gawain, but it spoke of something grandiose and sweeping on that same, gut-deep level.

Something sweeping and grandiose

People tend to associate the numinous with a sense of peace, of silent wonder, but sometimes it is more a sense of your heart being pried apart with grinning exuberance. Sometimes, it is that twisting, cathartic need that comes with the raunchiest choruses of folksong, the catchiest reels of the Morris. Sometimes it was what we feel when we hear stories about heroes, about people in extremity, about villains we love to hate, and sometimes just love, despite ourselves.

And that feeling is sacred. Some narratives speak to something deep in us, something more real than anything we enounter in our daily lives.When they are slighted, undermined, mocked, we feel that little wince that cries out 'sacrilege!'. It is one of the reasons why feelings are running so high around this 'Hydra Cap' debacle. Some heroes should be held high, above baseness, above the taint of cynicism.

Yet, collectively, we disown these stories. Heroism, self-sacrifice, betrayal, need - the bright, bold colours of traditional stories - are things we insist upon shutting out as we become 'grown-up', 'critical', 'literary'. But these things are still nestled in us, occupying a space in what I can only call our soul.

My engagement with this comic was not adult. It was not smooth, questioning, probing. It was not the 'refined' tastes that I have spent years cultivating. No. It was the wild joy that got me into stories in the first place. It made me air punch, made me grin, made me arch my feet and press my eyes together. I cared from a place of total, unironic absorpsion. I felt this book, felt the way I once felt as I tore around the playground pretending to be the Human Torch.

(Flame on!)

But, as such, an actual review is beyond me. Is Mighty Thor: Volume 7 great art? Will it change the shape of Literature as we know it?

Is the story any good, even? Should you read it?

I have no fucking clue. Sorry.

Also: Malekith the Accursed - just too FABULOUS for your morality.

There are some books out there that make you realise the futility of reviewing books, that make you see there is no helpful, universal rubric to define whether something is worthwhile. Yes, you can analyse craft and effect and technique, but sometimes a story speaks to something that is too pronounced and personal, its power over you too great to allow you to reach for your wonted pose of critical objectivity.

I have to admit that, while I tend to enjoy what I read, I'm not especially immersed in Marvel 616 stuff. As an adult reader, it's rare they provide me with more than an entertaining stopping post for an insatiable bookworm. Mighty Thor: Thunder in Her Veins went so far beyond that faint praise that there is no comparison - but those feelings are so subjective that I cannot extend to any of you.

As such, I really can't recommend it. Do you like stories about honour and righteousness, about family and longing, about war and good and evil, and some things that you just can't categorise? Then maybe read it. You might get something from it.

But, while we're on the subject of recommenations, what I have to say is that  it isn't really this comic you need to read. No. Don't seek out a specific story or book, don't listen to anything else. Instead, shrug off your irony. Ignore the cheap, headline grabbing shots, the 'risky' takes appealing to the part of you that wants to tarnish and tear down.

No. Reach into your heart and find those embarrasing remnants of unmitigated joy - however commerical, low brow or melodramatic they may be. Find your heroes - your glorious and impossible heroes - and cling to them. Celebrate them.

We are readers. We are better than that.

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*What? The stories were better.
** Shout out to 'The Grinning Demon' and 'Whatever Comics' of Maidstone, which (when I finally plucked up the courage to slip inside) were absolutely lovely. But you know what I meant.

Please, tell me a ghost story

Oh, I do love ghost stories. The staple of my late childhood reading, if you count out Narnia and Diana Wynne Jones, were stories of revenants and warnings from beyond the grave, beginning with my Dad's copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination (not the Edgar Allan Poe compilation of the same name, but a TV tie in to what I'm guessing is this series and a lifelong confusion regarding that particular title) and going from there.

But, you see, I wasn't just surrounded by adults willing to hand me totally inappropriate books, I grew up surrounded by a rich tradition of the oral ghost story. Family tales, polished by time and hyperbole; odd, unresolved fragments of 'something strange that happened to me'; weird co-incidences; Urban (or perhaps rural) legends; and of course the "I live in the middle of nowhere, and the best form of fun is to make up shit and terrify my friends."

I know hundreds, and most of them gained from that opening gambit, or a book passed to me in desperation upon hearing it. Just because I know them doesn't mean that I can tell them, but there are a few that I can. Many of them have never found their way into print, or if they have only as part of a compilation of real life ghost stories. Because that's the thing about ghost stories, once you encounter them. The best ones are true, or at the very least 'true'.

"My Grandmother, who was not a fanciful woman..."

Do you believe in ghosts?

We are always assured that the original teller does not. M.R James, master of the form, understood this. Ghost stories do not - or at least, should not - happen to believers. A credulous person cannot be trustedin these things. They will always jump to the most sensational conclusion. No. What you need is someone calmer, someone rational and a little sceptical. At the very furthest reach, we need an open mind, an 'I've not seen enough evidence to persuade me either way." In James' work, his narrator is usually taken in hand by a older acquaintance, wry or solemn, who is older, more experienced, and more comfortable with the truth in Hamlet's words, "There are more things..." Even the believers do so quietly, without fuss.

In our own tales, we are equally discriminating. Our source is always reliable. My Great-grandmother was not a fanciful woman, but... My friend, who doesn't believe any of this stuff... It's the classic urban legend source, two removes. It does not happen to you, the listener, or the one telling the story, but someone with whom they could have direct contact, their great aunt, their cousin's friend, their next-door-neighbour's mum. It is close enough that belief is conceivable but, ah, always just that little bit too far to check the facts.

First hand ghost stories, in my experience, are generally told ruthlessly, without embellishment. Unless there is a gap of many years, they are dropped in a way that makes telling them to someone else a bore, "Yes, but you did you notice that..." Perhaps it takes some distance to spin a proper tale around them.

So do you believe in ghosts? According to this article, which I read about two years ago (and got angry at), 38% of the population of Britain believe in ghosts. But of that 62% who ticked the 'no' box, how many of them love a good, scary tale? How many of them will, in he right conversation, divulge some curious little fragment of their own life, or a family recollection by which they will swear? How many of them are undecided? Asking someone if they believe is almost invariably a prelude to getting a tale, a much more effective way than my childhood efforts. "Well, no. I don't. But..."

Why we all need a bit of Mary Sue

"That book? Oh, God. I couldn't stand that book. The main character was such a Mary-"

No. You are not allowed to finish that sentence.

Look, I get it, it's a useful term. People really do write chronically bad self-inserts. People - teenagers especially - construct idealised versions of themselves and let the relevant narrative world revolve around that character, and people do this a lot in fan-fiction and it's really very annoying, but for a moment, please, stop. Think about what you're saying.

Because, I know, in its original form it was a helpful term. The Mary Sue as a specific "self-insert in a wish-fulfilment fan fiction which disrupts the established rules of that universe" sense has its uses. And, to be fair, even when it's used as a term for 'really shoddy character writing' it has its functionality, although it's kinda imprecise. But language is defined by usage, and what most people really mean when they say Mary Sue is, "A (generally female) character who I don't much like, and therefore find implausible."

So, yeah, I'm talking about sexism again.

Because it is just such a gendered term. In a world where the generic tends to be masculine, it's telling that some blokes get described as a 'sort of a male Mary Sue'. And, oh, there is a male equivalent, of course - our Gary or Marty Stu - but seriously? Mary Sue is a name complete in its sing-song mockery. It sounds real, it sounds naïve, it is a name as bland and goody-two-shoes as they come. It smacks of a mundane world self insert into a world where everyone else has dynamic, one syllable names. It is a kitsch name, a young name, a child or little old lady name. Where a more demure, self-aware adult would just go by Mary, it sounds like a teenager's desperate attempt at idiosyncrasy. I know people with names like Mary Sue.

Gary Stu? Not so much. From a fictional perspective it's hardly got the caricature element of Jim-Bob, the pretensions of Jean-Jacques. It doesn't even scan. Who the hell abbreviates their middle name?

So, no, the male term is not as well conceived, not as convincing, not as immediately recognisable as a derogatory term. What's more, the application of the feminised form is so much more prevalent. Pick up any significant female character or love interest and - sooner or later - the name will get hurled: Bella Swan, Mary Sue. Katniss Everdeen, Mary Sue. Ginny Weasley, Mary Sue, Even, *gulp* Lizzie Bennet, Mary Sue.
 (NB, I do not advocate any of these links, I merely wish to show their prevalence. Suffice to say that these were all found on the first page of a google search. A similar search with male names throws up very few articles or discussions that use this as their main thrust, and a lot more articles where people say, "If you use that definition, there's a case for James Bond as a Marty Stu". )

Fact is, fictional men are allowed to be world-bendingly brilliant. Oh, people might complain about the way the Doctor is so intelligent and powerful he can defeat an alien invasion fleet by talking at it, but we don't have quite such a pat cultural term for it. Men - or at least, the men whose stories we hear in the genres where the Sue originates - are supposed to be unique, to have a sense of destiny, of innate worth. And yes, people do mock them, people do tear them down, but there  is no discourse through which this is facilitated. Each case of a hero who crosses the line of, "Oh, come on!" is an isolated case. Each heroine who does so is a symptom of a wider, social malaise.

And, of course, it is a charge any female character who sticks her head above the parapet must answer. "What's so special about her?" we might ask - or else, "Oh, dear. Has the author made her too special."And, yes, she might be cleared of all charges but she is immediately suspect simply by virtue of being female, of there being a handy, catchy term through which we can describe her shortcomings. Besides, she is unlikely to be cleared of all charges. These things tend to involve the desperate quoting so beloved of rabid fans: This one can't be a Mary Sue because x, y, z.

The more the term spreads, the more it becomes the brand of dishonour upon a writer, upon a fandom. The more that writers worry about making their (particularly female) characters "flawed" and "realistic", on being, "not too extreme", the blander, more understated and less ideal these female characters will become. And when writers set the standard for exceptional femininity so low, the harder it becomes for new writers to make a female character interesting, intelligent, talented without calling down the question, "Is she a Mary Sue?" This trend serves only to drive deeper the assumption that female characters cannot be 'special', but only the self-deluding 'speshul'. 

This is not to say that there isn't some chronically bad writing out there. This isn't to say that there aren't badly designed, plot-hijacking authorial dream-darlings out there, messing up their fictional worlds. This isn't to say that junk-fiction doesn't rely too often on step-into-these-shoes-dear-reader-and-become-perfect character types. It is to say, why be so aggressive towards the female examples?

It is to say, what the hell is wrong with that anyway?

You know what's hard?

Growing up.

Oh, don't call "teenage angst" on me - it was awful. Everything changed. You could no longer get any real comfort from childish things yet the adult world - even the adolescent world - was bloody terrifying. Your body, your interests, your abilities and intellect were held up against some illusory set of ideals defined by your teachers, your parents, your classmates. You didn't know what you were doing with your life. You weren't even sure who you were.

Into the bad body-image, the moodswings, the bewilderment, the frustration, the intellectual anxiety, you would dream that you were special, that you were going to go somewhere, that you would be somebody who made a big impression on the world. You felt like you had a destiny. And, yeah, maybe the world around you didn't actually treat you like shit, but sometimes it felt like it did. Sometimes you felt like the one person who didn't have friends, felt that nobody knew the true heart of you, that you were the one being singled out for punishment. Yeah, maybe you grew up, got over it, but you know what?

I bet stories helped with that.

You could open a book, or turn on a film and slip into a world where your feeling of persecution was justified, where you were proved to be the hero after all. You could use this to work out what you were, what you wanted to be - it offered dreams, escapes. It offered you possibilities, heroisms, romances.

Picking up these books, identifying with these so-called Mary Sues let you try out paths through life. Maybe you would be the kind of person who valiantly sacrifices yourself for your friends and dies in a way that is clearly written with a cinema bio-pic in mind. Or maybe you'd become a crusader for justice and kick ass while averting the apocalypse. Maybe, who knows, maybe you'd just marry that millionaire and go and have a life of moneyed luxury where the biggest worry was not embarrassing yourself in front of said millionare's bitchy relatives.

Or maybe all those were just fantasies. Maybe you knew that. But those fantasies had a function; they gave us some idea of the kind thing we wanted to do, the kind of person we wanted to be. They gave us a chance to experience things that - in our life - were probably only going to be encountered on a much smaller scale. Yeah, okay, most of them weren't written in deathless prose, but that wasn't exactly the point. Sometimes we don't care how shakily something is written if it speaks to our better selves.

 The Mary-Sue and the ideal self:

And that's what this is abut, the better self. One of the big complaints about Mary Sues is that they are not merely an authorial insert, but rather an idealised authorial insert. This is not just you, it's you with the blemishes removed and that annoying 2 stone lost. It's you with those sparkling green eyes you always wanted and... oh, wouldn't jet black hair look cool? And, of course, not only is this girl beautiful, she is the best: at everything, always, effortlessly. And she's nice, too! She's kind, caring, compassionate. Everybody loves her, and those who hate her are just jealous...

And, I'll admit it, a case of the Sues this advanced can be pretty nauseating to read, especially if it's not in a genre you like, or you know someone who won't shut up about it. But, but...

Adolescence - and I will say especially for teenage girls because I have no experience of having been a teenage boy - is a time of remarkably low self-esteem. The media is there, relentlessly undermining every aspect of our personal appearance, we have family groups yelling at us to stay kids and peers yelling at us to grow up. There are schools telling us how important it is to 'be ourselves' provided we get all our work in on time and don't contravene the dress code. Having a relationship is everything. It doesn't matter if your queer or asexual, everybody in your life will have some opinion on your immanent heterosexual experiences, whether that be forbidding them or nagging you to begin them. Because of this, we are bombarded by endless relationship advice which drives home the message that we are not to be too smart and that if we are we should hide it, that boys' egos must be flattered at all costs, that boy's desires should define what we wear, where we go. We are told we must not be 'easy' or 'frigid' and we have...

Look, we have patriarchy, alright? It sucks.

Yet, despite this, miraculously despite all this, we have a little core of self-esteem the bastards haven't taken from us yet. We have little moments of, "I got 100% on that test. That's pretty good, isn't it?", we have the races we win, the 'okay' pictures we draw, the moment we 'get' quadratic equations. We have those evenings where we discover, "Hey, if I tie my hair like that, I really don't look too awful." We have feature that we pick out of our faces so that we can say, "I'm not properly pretty, not actually, but my lips are quite nice."

And a Mary Sue - or perhaps, more accurately, an idealised, central character - comes from that place. It reaches right into that last little touch of the egotism of childhood, that final spark of, "No, I am brilliant" that the dominant cultural discourse implies adult women aren't allowed to possess. It pulls it out of us, lets use revel in it with the full weight of adolescent narcissism. We are the agents, the heroes of our own stories, a shout in the dark of the endless culture of negativity, low self-esteem, eating disorders, self harm and self abnegation. When we step into the shoes of a 'Mary Sue', every now and then, we see our ideal self. Not who we are, but who we'd like to be, and we begin to see that the two are perhaps not so different after all. They give us strength.

You know what else is hard?

Being a grown-up.

Seriously, chaps, don't try it, it rubbish. Because when you're a grown-up you no longer have the excuse of youthful self-obsession. The world expects you to know who you are, and by that it means "who it expects you to be, and that includes not contravening the dress code". All those voices that were shouting at you during your adolescence are still yelling and although they may have got a bit quieter, they've also got a lot more dull.

And again (sorry-not-sorry MRAs) the burden of this so-called maturity is heavier on women. This is because the second we hit 35 (or drop a sprog, whichever comes first), we don't get the spot-light any more, we don't have that flexibility of role - even if the only roles we were offered in the first place were 'sexy sidekick' or 'Mary Sue'.

Wonder why 50 Shades was so successful as 'mummy porn'?

My theory is that mature women got fed up of being told they weren't allowed to be sexual. Got fed up of the fact that daring to be matter-of-fact about our bodies and desires led us to be shamed, made people tell us to put it away, that nobody wants to see. And faced with that, who wouldn't want to slip back into that endless possibility of the early twenties, when one was free, single, childless?

Well, actually, no. Most of us wouldn't do that. But that's the nice thing about fantasy.

The thing about fiction is that it lets us take on roles we might like to try or - better still - would run a mile from in reality. That's the crux of this; fantasy, escape. The need doesn't die when we leave those formative years. It's nice, from time to time, to have a character doing things you'd like to be able to do, if you didn't carry the burden of too much realism. And, yeah, good writing is always a plus, but here's a little secret: When people go to that private, escapist place, they aren't doing it to please you. They really don't give a damn what you think about their dreams, their fantasies, their escapes. What gives you the right to reach in there and try to snuff out that little light, just because you didn't like a book, a film, a fanfic?

Sure, I can't stop you, not really. Freedom of speech is a human a right. But with that comes the responsibility of thinking about the effect of what you say. And do you really want to take this away from someone? Do you want to be that person?

The Hero's Journey: What's really going on in the Labyrinth (part 2)

So, supernatural entities have been invoked and provoked, and our heroine is off on a dream quest to restore her baby brother to his rightful home.

And, speaking in generalities, Labyrinth is a dream quest in the fine old style. Inhabitants must be befriended, puzzles solved, fears overcome. What's more - as so many have pointed out - Sarah's journey takes place through an echo of her childhood room, through the country of her unconscious mind. The baby's cry becomes a call to her, and she journeys towards it and – the makers of the film would have us believe – responsibility.

But the implications of what is happening here are much more subtle, more interesting that that. We are not simply dealing with a dream landscape, we are dealing with the territory of childhood turned against its rightful ruler. A dark force is in Sarah's imagination, controlling it, manipulating her through it, and at every turn, Sarah forces it back, with courage, with kindness, with ingenuity.

This should really be a picture of the party at the end.

Still, so far, so Hero's Journey. It brings her right to the centre of the Labyrinth, where she faces her shadow and speaks those immortal words, “You have no power over me.” The malevolent force is banished, and she can return, as she does, to the real world. 

But to leave it there would be to forget the magical puppet party where the heroes and villains get together to throw confetti and be friendly. I'd always been bothered by that, felt it was a cop out. Felt that she somehow got both worlds, that she turned down magic, but still got to play with it. Then I thought about it properly, thought about what it means: she's safe getting down with the Fire Gang, Ludo can party with his ex-tormenters. What it means is that this isn't hostile country any more, that she isn't dealing with enemies. What that means is that Sarah's imagination is hers to control. That she is the queen of all this, like she always should have been. She's in charge now - not that rat who calls himself Jareth.

Come on, that's a brilliant prize. And she deserves it.

Still, if this were all it were, then the makers of the film would be right. A coming of age story, a powerful one, a beautiful one, but nothing particularly special. A girl grows up and overcomes the dark side of her imagination. Yes, she takes control, and by implication, learns to be less selfish, accepts her role as a surrogate mother. But I said this story was special, and two things make it so: the first is Bowie's performance as Jareth (more of that later), the second is a sequence that occurs just before the final confrontation.

Wuthering Heights: In defence of amour fou

So, I took the plunge and went to a book group. 

Wow. Socialising. With real live people-persons who had real people personalities. That's not happened in a while. The book we were talking about was Wuthering Heights. I enjoyed the discussion; lots of interesting stuff raised, tangents and ideas about, not only the book in question, but about the nature of people-persons, and the way that said people-persons interact with books. It was good. Naturally, I did my usual seminar dear-God-no-wonder-you-had-no-friends-at-University routine, but that's a story for another day.

It also raised something that's been brewing in my head for quite a long time – something about the way our current society thinks about love. It may surprise none of you to learn that I agree with Angela Carter.

“Well,” my obliging hypothetical audience supply, “what do you agree with Angela Carter about, aside from 'practically-everything-with-the-notable-exception-of-clitoral-orgasm'?”

For a start, I agree with her about Wuthering Heights. And about love. There is a significant overlap between the two¹. 

Obviously, the whole 'love' thing came up at the book group – notably the conception that Wuthering Heights is some kind of a romance novel². We were asked, more as an opener to discussion than anything else, whether we thought Wuthering Heights was a love story. There was derisory laughter, slightly incredulous glances, and there was me, too much of a fucking coward to offer disagreement.

Which is this: 

We have a real problem with love in this country (or this society, or the English speaking bits of the world. Whatever.) We have a problem with it. So often, in the discussion, words came up to describe what Cathy and Heathcliff felt: obsession, infatuation. We are not, as a society, willing to believe that what those two experience is love. Ask people what love is, and there is a fair chance they will start quoting Corinthians 13:4 at you³.

Patient? Kind? Right... Are we even talking about the same thing, here?

No. We're not. That's one of the problems we face, just to have this discussion: there are a dearth of words in the English language to describe love. Of course, some kinds of love are patient, and kind, and they are valid, important types of love. They, however, are not what I am talking about. The Greeks have it slightly better, they have agápe, éros, philía, and storgē, but even they do not quite answer my purposes. These are different types of love used, exclusively or in combination, in different kinds of relationships. Most often, the distinction is used to separate basic human compassion from emotional love from lust. But I am not talking about physical love as opposed to emotional love, and whatever list of those one needs to build a happy relationship. I'm not, if I'm honest, talking about relationships. A relationship is an ongoing negotiation between two or more people; a relationship answers to sense, to reason, to common, human kindness.

No. I'm not talking about relationships.

There is, though, a distinction in the English language, a distinction that tells us more about ourselves than many of us would care to admit. We talk about loving and we talk about being in love.